:Family Matters

January 28, 2007

Because I know you were all sitting on the edge of your seats when I left you last week, wondering what precarious position I was about to place myself in, I feel that the least I can do, to relieve your anxiety, is tell you about the on going progress of our downstairs reclamation project. First, the bad news, I am sad to inform you that nothing happened in the bath room other than what is supposed to happen in bathrooms without a sink. The good news is that MGH’s office is beginning to take shape as the two book cases are now in place with their offering of neatly shelved books which involved a gazillion trips up and down stairs on my part just to move the books an arm load at a time which used to be a task reserved for the children in our family who are long gone which leaves no one but ‘mother dear’, which would be me, to perform this task. (Since this is a retirement home I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised at this development.) This is not counting the extra trips required to bring back the encyclopedia Americana after once having the set in place upstairs and then deciding there wasn’t room for it and other large volumes that also needed shelving to occupy the same space and then taking them back downstairs only to have my good husband ix-nay that idea.
After 45 years of marriage I find that I am still learning things about MGH. He usually leaves the home décor up to me which has worked out well, for the most part, at least in my opinion, as he provides and I buy which fits in quite well with, he’s the professor and I am absent minded. Yesterday, however, when he went into his office to check how things were progressing he immediately noticed that the Americana set was missing. I mean, with World Book and Britannica available to him, not to mention the internet, I figured if he really wanted to reference something in Americana he could go downstairs. This was not how he saw it and since it is his office I made the switch. The other thing he startled me with was how quickly he discovered one of his high school year books was missing. “I’m missing my 1944 Jordan High year book. What happened to it” he sternly queried me.
Quickly realizing that there was no one else convenient to blame for having misplaced the year book, one of the downsides that come from living in a retirement home, I pled the fifth but promised to look for it which seemed to pacify him for the moment. My usually kind and gentle husband had become as fierce as eagles protecting their offspring from harm. His books are his treasure and they are all ‘known’ to him which I hadn’t realized until that “ah ha” moment yesterday. Ruefully, I must admit that learning new things about ones spouse does have a way of keeping a marriage interesting.
Wednesday my sister Barbara and her husband Bob along with their daughter Beth and her youngest Jordan met us in Fillmore, Utah which is almost an hour and a half from Provo where Beth lives and an hour and a half from Cedar City where we live. We have done this on enough occasions now to see the restaurant where we meet change names from The Paradise Inn to the Garden of Eatin’. Barbara and Bob, of course, are grandparents to die for. They manage to make it to all the important events in their grandchildren’s lives and have done so for years which makes it nice for us as they traveled to Utah first because their daughter Cathy Fielding and her family lived in state before moving to Florida and now for Beth which has allowed us the chance to visit face to face which is always enjoyable.
They were full of stories about their life in the state of Washington where they have taken up residence next to their daughter Ann and her husband Ed and their children. Barbara tells us that they have been blessed with so much rain that the salmon have taken to swimming across roads. They were without electricity for several hours which necessitated the purchase of a generator to run the essentials in the ‘big house’ where Ann and Ed live. (Barbara and Bob live in a modular home that was placed on the property when the house was under construction.) They have lost several big trees one of which fell on the almost new utility trailer which they purchased to move their household belongings from West Linn, OR (and I moan about moving books upstairs—just thinking about the number of trips it must have taken to move a whole house hold from hither to yon makes my head ache). The trailer still had boxes in it which Barbara tells me were waiting for the two storage sheds to be built, which can’t be done until it stops raining and dries out. This being the case the boxes, having to go somewhere dry, went into their small home where they take up space and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. They cheerfully admit that ‘things’ are a bit crowded now but life is good as they adjust to retirement and a new home in a new state. Bob says that he is busier than ever which is a comment I have often heard from those over sixty-five and while I hate to burst anyone’s balloon, I think I can safely say that it is not because we have more work but rather because the work we need to get done now takes us three times as long to do, which gives us the illusion of being busier. As this tends to keep our days full and allows us to feel useful I am not complaining

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A little help, please! A family at church asked us if we wanted to split the purchase of half a cow. We did, and now I have oodles and oodles of chuck roast and chuck steak in my freezer. (And what, if any, is the difference?) What can I make with it besides beef stew? Tom and David and Bryan will only tolerate beef stew about once a month and the meat, even cooked all day in my slow cooker, is tough and gets stuck in my teeth. Any suggestions?

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January 21, 2007

Yesterday was MGH’s 79th birthday which I believe he enjoyed. He spent a quiet day punctuated with phone calls from friends and family. In the afternoon we went out to eat after debating whether to really live it up and go to a movie as well, which we have not done for months, he finally opted to watch a movie on TNT (commercial free) at home because as he put it, “I don’t want to spend the money to go to a theater”. (I watched it with him after he reassured me that even if I were to fall asleep my loud snores wouldn’t annoy him as after 45 years he was quite used to the sound/volume that I can generate while sleeping. Fortunately, I got interested in the movie and stayed awake the whole time which meant we both enjoyed ourselves.) I believe that he is genuinely amazed to still be alive having been expecting to leave this earthly life for the past thirty years and almost succeeding 11 years ago when he had a massive heart attack that led to quintuple by-pass surgery. He told Dawn yesterday when she called that if he makes it to his 80th birthday he wants to have a really big ‘bash’ with all the family in attendance.

Now for an update on our ever evolving project in the nether regions of our home which as you may or may not know was inundated, okay so the amount that backed up through the drain drenched the carpet in half of one room as well as about 18 inches into the guest bedroom which meant the carpet had to be replaced in both those rooms. The WW(wastewater) was all over the floor in the laundry/furnace room because that is where the drain is and it also made it into the bathroom with its vinyl floor and then out into the family room along the inside walls. (This could have been a lot worse than it was and if the city had let us know that there was a problem at our next door neighbor’s and it might not hurt to check and see if we had a problem as well it would have saved all of us a lot of time and money i.e. eight inches of drywall wouldn’t have had to be removed in all the affected areas which meant we would not have had to repaint three rooms or dismantle our bathroom. We still would have had to replace carpet but that would have been a lot cheaper and less work by a long shot.)

This happened on October 16th of last year. Ford and Kim had just finished laying porcelain tile for us, managing with Herculean effort to finish most of the task in five days before needing to get home again. Having watched how they did the grouting between the tiles I felt like I could finish the job—little realizing that they made it look easy because they knew what they were doing. Because we had to have the floor area open most of the furniture had been moved outside which I assured them would cause no problems as “it never rains here”. I was immediately proved wrong when a steady rain settled in for several days which meant that everything that was out now had to come back in and get stuffed into every nook and cranny that it was possible to find. Talk about challenging/discouraging, but being true to the Andrus creed, ‘that when the going gets tough, the tough get going’, work continued. All the places into which we had crammed the belongings that didn’t go outside were now in need of being emptied themselves so we began improvising which meant that the area Kim and Ford had completed became the repository of much more than was ever intended or thought possible. Sadly, there was more that had to go out than there was room to hold so the area that wasn’t grouted was filled as well leaving only room enough for a walk way through the area. This presented an interesting conundrum because everything that needed doing was dependent on something else being done first so there we were dithering about where to begin with time passing, wheels spinning, cookies crumbling. . . .

Cedar City grudgingly assumed responsibility but told us that we must submit two estimates for each of the areas that needed fixing. This meant that we had dry wallers and painters and carpet layers and plumbers and finish carpenters to contact as well as an appraiser for personal items that were ruined. This took two months to accomplish and resulted in highly inflated bids being submitted by most. Cedar City knew how to handle that problem—they just paid us a third of what we estimated the repair cost to be. Fortunately, Dawn was able finagle a deal at the Boulevard, where she works, for carpet which helped a lot and after we paid an exorbitant amount to the dry waller to do his stuff we were ready to get serious about putting it all back together which we are doing ourselves except for the finish carpentry. That said, I am happy to report that my sewing room has now been moved downstairs and is fully operational. This will make it possible to now move the book cases (two) and six story file cabinets weighing at least a ton apiece (two) upstairs for MGH to use in what used to be my sewing room and which will now morph into an office for him. The trade off should benefit us both as he will now be warm enough to work without being covered by blankets and I will have more room to spread out my sewing projects. We have sent out an SOS to the Cobble Creek Ward for help in moving these items and help has been promised to arrive on Tuesday at 6 p.m., like lambs to the slaughter even though I tried to warn them that all the items to be moved are really, really heavy—think on the order of an upright piano and you will have an idea of just what it is that I am trying to impart here.

On Monday I intend to move my theater of operations to what used to be our third bathroom and begin painting. Of course I must first remove the wallpaper border that has proven unable to withstand the steam from the shower and is sending out calls for attention by hanging precariously in some areas. This will require much maneuvering of what Sherman calls ‘your rickety ladder’ and which he refuses to use into various interesting places such as the bath tub, which if you have ever tried to fit a ladder into you will understand what I am talking about here, and me climbing on it and ignoring the fact that it sways/creaks rather ominously as I climb. This will require much Faith on my part but as I will have a clean surface to show for my labor, it will be worth it. I am, however, upset about the repainting part as I still have 20 years left on the 25 year warranty from the first time. When I last painted the bathroom I felt that the chances of repainting in the near future were slim to none and at my age would probably factor out to never. Ooops, wrong on that one wasn’t I!

I have never been known for getting work done quickly much preferring ‘slow and steady wins the race’ to ‘slap dash brings the cash’. This has not improved as I have advanced into my twilight years. I have now joined the ranks of the elderly; this occurs I am told when one reaches the age of 65, which I am now on the wrong side of. I resent the implications that go with elderly and show this by raising my cane with my palsied hand and waving it vigorously in the air for as long as I can manage which is usually, at least a second, to prove my point whenever I see or hear the term while shouting, “age is only a number” or “there’s more of us old folks than there are of you young un’s and we can still vote so pass me my heart medicine and help me up out of this chair and by golly I’ll show you I can still get a few things done. I’m not finished yet, not by a long shot”! Having thus made my position clear I am then content to fall back and continue my nap. That having been said, stay tuned for the next installment of “One Woman’s Attempt to Show She Still Can!” and see if she did.

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CULTIVATOR BARS
One Incident About My Dad

My younger children, who never knew him, have occasionally asked me what kind of person my dad was. I have always responded in a positive and praising way, but don’t feel that I have been able to convey very much about my dad that they have been able to understand. I am therefore going to attempt to tell some specific instances of his behavior that will, hopefully help you to feel and know what kind of person he was. Here is one such experience.

Crozier Kimball said at Dad’s funeral that he was a man who could take severe things calmly and serenely. This is an example of that ability. In Dad’s old age I was fortunate enough to live near him for about five years. He would sometimes ask me to help him with mechanical chores. One day he was adjusting the tools on the cultivator bars on the back of his tractor. There were two of these bars which were made of heavy iron about 1/4th inch thick, bent into a hollow square with sides about 2 inches wide. Each bar was about 8 feet long. Dad asked me to come over and help him mount the tools and get them adjusted to proper widths between them and at the proper height off the ground.

There was considerable getting on and off the tractor to test the height (which would determine how deep the tools dug into the ground when working). Since it was quite a chore for him to get on and off the tractor (which I can understand now that I have gotten old) he asked me to be the one to do that. In the process of lowering and raising the tool bar, which I did many times as needed, I accidentally hit the lever at the wrong time and let the heavy bar drop on Dad’s shin.

Both of his shins were only lightly covered with scar tissue, where there should have been skin, because of the runaway that he had been involved in many years before when he dragged between the two wild colts for about twenty minutes with them striking his legs with their inside hind feet at ever stride. His shins were always delicate after that and very easily injured. When the rear bar hit him on the right leg and slid down his shin bone, scraping it raw once again, he let out an involuntary scream of pain, but that was all. No swearing, no bad language, no blaming me, no recrimination. I apologized profusely, but he just waved it off. “Not your fault,” he said. “Just an accident.”

I know it hurt him like fury, but after a few minutes to catch his breath he continued on with the job we were doing until he got everything adjusted to his satisfaction. Only then did he go in the house to let Mother dress his wound. His leg was very sore for about a week, but I never heard him complain about it and he went right on with his work.

DeVon F. Andrus
Cedar City, Utah
15 January 2007

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January 14, 2007

We were blessed with another 12 inches of snow on Friday and are beginning to wonder if it might be time to stop praying as MGH says,

“For moisture, in a timely manner, to sustain life in this arid country”.

When I tell him, “We have enough to last for awhile”.

He replies with, a twinkle in his eye,

“My father always said, ‘There are two things you never want to turn down and they are a heifer calf and a rain storm’ “.

Soooo, that means back to the old snow shovel if we hope to drive anywhere in the near future. Of course, southern Utah being southern Utah, if we are willing to wait until the middle of next week temperatures will raise high enough (right now it is -17 below zero) to melt it away and we won’t have to lift a finger, provided we don’t starve to death first!

I can’t help but remember the many times I would hear Dad say during the middle of some cold snap as he entered the house wearing his insulated coveralls with the flaps on his cap pulled well down over his ears, face reddened from the cold, stamping his feet to knock the snow off his boots while pulling his gloves off and blowing on his fingers as he tried to hasten the blood flow to warm them up,

“Let’s go back to Arizona”.

He used to tell us that Iowa only had two seasons, ‘nine months of winter and 3 months darn late in the fall’.

Of course, he never did but I wonder if he might have if mother had lived. I can remember them talking about doing just that when she was in the hospital in Iowa, City shortly before she died. I don’t know if they ever would have gone back but I think Dad felt that if she had something to look forward to it would help her hold on as she struggled with the effects of the leukemia that was ravaging her body. (I can remember her telling me that the doctors were constantly reassuring her that a cure might be found at any time as there was promising research underway. Now, 41 years later, 70% of children with leukemia go into remission, I didn’t see any figures for adults but I am guessing it is similar, which is wonderful but much too late to help mother.

Mother died May 17, 1965. She was only 48 years old. I was 24 years old and thought that age almost ancient. It wasn’t until I reached 48, myself, that I realized how young she actually was, what a brief time we were allowed to have her with us. Its taken years for me to realize how much she gave of herself to whatever cause she was engaged in whether it was baking doughnuts by the dozens for bake sales while fund raising for the chapel in Keosauqua or traveling endless hours to carry out the duties of her various callings at church, to making gorgeous prom dresses for her daughters. Whatever she did she did to the fullest of her considerable abilities.

She was a perfectionist and extended this need to her daughters, which quite often put her at odds with us and our inclination to take the path of least resistance. As I am a procrastinator I had many times when I know I disappointed her desires that I succeed in projects I became involved in which usually meant that I was in complete agreement with her on the need to start early rather that late when it was no longer possible to do so, such as learning my solos for competition where I usually garnered just enough positives as to not totally embarrass myself but not good enough to proceed to the next level. Never the less mother was always there offering her support and encouragement.

Mother wielded a mean comb. This is something that Barbara, Darlene, Kathy and I are in complete agreement about. How could we ever forget the sessions at the table with a rat tail comb (a rat tail comb has a handle shaped like a rats tail which is where the name comes from, this allows hair to be parted and small curls encouraged) and a glass of water standing at the ready (the comb was dipped into the water to wet our hair thereby making it more manageable, at least that was the theory) when she put our hair into those infamous French braids and here I am not talking about the single braids that are so popular now but rather braids that are made by parting the hair in the center of the head and then gathering up equal strands, beginning at the side top and braiding that, then gathering new hair from just below the completed braid above and carefully including it into the finished part and so on. This was made necessary because, particularly, Barbara and I had such baby fine hair that refused to grow in an orderly manner and so had to be treated by ‘extreme’ methods in order to tame it. The result was neat and tidy when finished off with ribbons over the rubber bands that kept the braids from unwinding but mother pulled our hair so tight in trying to get all the ‘short’ strands included, that we were often in agony. It was neat and presentable if uncomfortable and in her opinion that trumped our wails, which we used judiciously as mother had little patience for our complaints or wiggling for that matter and would give us a whack on the head with the comb or pull our hair as warning that she had had enough. Fortunately, for us, as the day wore on our hair would gradually escape its confines and allow our facial features to return to normal.

Mother was also a great believer in ‘perms’ with names like Lilt or Toni with their promise of instant curls for those not so gifted. The happily smiling women and girls shown in the advertisements and on the perm boxes reassurred us that we too could be just as beautiful by using their product. But the price we paid to get there. . . . This hellish event took place in our lives on a regular basis as we got older and past the little girl braids of our early childhood.

Perms required lots of towels to soak up the various liquids that ran down our faces and onto our clothes in spite of our best efforts at damage control. No sooner would one leak be brought under control then another would spring loose so there was a constant effort to keep the towel tightly pressed against ones hairline. This is particularly difficult when the hair has been tightly wound round the little curlers and the perm solution applied which meant there was ample room for excess liquid to roam. Men have no understanding or appreciation of the lengths women will go to make themselves beautiful as men are not required to go where nature has not. (Well, maybe I will have to reconsider that statement and factor in shaving which women don’t have to do, at least not their faces, and which MGH assures me requires considerable manly effort to continue on a daily basis. MGH also tells me that when a man shaves twice a day while courting it is a sign of utmost sacrifice on his part.) No, men just get to enjoy the results which can be spectacular when successful and if not everyone needs a good laugh which scientific investigation has shown ‘a laugh a day keeps the doctor away’. (The rule of thumb between a good hair cut and a bad one is ‘three days’. For a perm it is three months, sigh and I should know as I have had both.)

I inherited mothers desire to perm and did so on anyone within arms reach until hair styles in the 70’s went straight and my daughters could outrun me. I kept all the gear anyway in case it might be needed for some unimaginable circumstance or emergency but after hauling it around for years I finally decided that life on this planet as we knew it would not end if I quietly disposed of all the paraphernalia, which I did while praying that mother would forgive me for my heresy.

Strange, the things I remember after all the years. I know this though, while mother never told us that she loved us she showed it constantly through the care and concern she showered over us. How I wish she could have lived to know her grandchildren and they her. . . .

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My father died on January 6, 2000 at the age of 86. He lived long enough to see the century turn, but just barely. I find it hard to believe that seven years has slipped away since then. When I was in third grade I can remember figuring out how old I would be when the year 2000 arrived and made it a goal to see that date arrive which I have, though there are some who would have you think that living in a retirement home isn’t really living, but I take issue with that thought as I have greatly enjoyed the time MGH and I have been able to spend together doing things we enjoy without the responsibility of caring for a family. This might sound strange but MGH and I never had time alone when we first married because of the six children from his first marriage which meant that I started out with a houseful who had to get used to me and my ways not just a husband, not that I am complaining, mind you, its just the way it was when we began our married life. We added five more to that number during the next 19 years with the result that we have been empty nesters for only a short while and so relish the quiet of our ‘golden years’ all the more.

Even though we had not been close to dad for a number of years we were still able to visit several times a year while we lived in Wisconsin. That changed when we moved to Utah in 1995. Of course there was the telephone which I found a very frustrating means of communication as his progressive loss of hearing meant that when we tried to talk he couldn’t understand what I was saying and would take a stab based on the few words that did come through which often led to quite comical results on the part of both of us as I tried to disentangle myself from what he thought I had said and he continued to mishear me which even made saying good-bye difficult. Still, it was nice to know that he was there continuing to act as a ‘stopper’ for the rest of us. (In case you haven’t reached that point in your life yet a ‘stopper’ means that there is still someone in your family older than you on life’s conveyor belt and while they are there the end of the road can still seem like it is a long way off and yes I understand that any of us can drop dead at any moment but most of us don’t and therefore the illusion of still having time in this world can be more easily maintained.)

Dad was my hero when I was a little girl. Mother used to tell me that I took after him so much that I even walked like him. I know I adopted many of his traits as my own such as his reserved manner and dislike of asking for help of any kind or not wanting to impose on anyone. I never heard him utter a swear word while mother had several that would occasionally pass her lips much to our shock as well as education. By today’s standards they were rather mild but when I was growing up we weren’t even allowed to say the word ‘butt’, which I rarely say, even now, feeling that it is a poor choice to describe a portion of the human anatomy preferring bottom instead. I can remember saying ‘son-of-a-gun’ once when I was about seven having heard it from one of the neighborhood children and rather liking the sound of it casually tossing it into some story I was telling which resulted in my being told if it was ever heard coming out of my mouth again I would have my mouth washed out with soap which was something I had already experienced once before or maybe I had just watched Barbara get her mouth washed out which kept me on the straight and narrow especially since I tried it on myself by taking a lick on the bar of soap in the bath room and finding it quite unpleasant resolved not to let that fate befall me, at this distance in time I can no longer remember, but Barbara always seemed to have the ability to draw parental wrath faster than the rest of us because of her feisty temperament and my ability to see that she was the one who got caught. I stayed on the wagon until I had teenage boys who used some rather graphic expressions at times and I began to use the word s—t during moments of extreme frustration which will forever remove my chances of being named ‘sainted’ when my funeral eulogy is given (as well as other flaws which I will not mention here). Because the Gano in me didn’t feel comfortable doing so I would spell it rather than say it much to the amusement of my children who still like to tease me about that time in my life. (MGH tells me that he never heard his father utter a ‘bad’ word and there existed a belief in his family that he would never say a particular word even if he had a mouthful).

This, of course, is not what I sat down to write about which is probably why I was never able to master playing checkers let alone chess—both of which dad was very good at. I don’t remember him playing very many games with us except those two. I do remember him telling both Barbara and me that the reason we were never able to win was because we lacked the ability to think ahead when planning our game strategy of which, obviously, there was none. This is all too true of me and has resulted in a tendency to ‘jump before I look’ and then pay the consequence, sigh. Dad used to tell us we were entitled to make a mistake once but if we failed to learn and made the same mistake again we were fools. He was right, of course, and it would be nice to say that I have always been able to put this bit of advice to good use but I must admit, rather ruefully, that there have been times in my life when I failed to learn a life lesson the first time and have been fated to repeat it. Another favorite truism of his was, “Expect the worst, Hope for the best and take what you get.”
How I loved to hear the story of his courtship of mother where he worked in the cafeteria at Arizona State in order to earn money to pay for his college expenses. She quickly caught his eye as one of the prettiest girls on campus and as she made her selections for her meal he would pick the best apple and polish it before placing it on her tray thereby insuring that he got her attention. I loved to look at the scrapbook mother kept of their dating time where the dance programs with their tiny pencils attached so that the young men could claim a dance with the young woman of their choice gave me a completely different picture of my parents. It was so odd to think of them as having existed separately without us—it was so neat to see that they had found each other just like a real romance story complete with eloping!

We were taught not to be picky about food although I will admit that must have taken some work but by and large we were encouraged to clean our plates always remembering the starving children in China who were not as blessed as we were. We always had to take a taste of the food that was served even if we thought it was ‘gross’. I still remember the first day of one of my elementary school days when calf brains were served in scrambled eggs. I don’t remember eating the dish but I suppose I must have had some smothered in so much ketchup there was no taste but tomato. Dad’s response to our disbelief that such an item would even be considered fit to eat was that it was ‘brain’ food and just what was needed to begin our new school year. Perhaps we did influence our parents sometimes as that particular dish was never served to us again!

I miss my dad. He was not an easy man to be around in many ways. He had high expectations for his daughters but they were no different than what he set for himself. He was steadfast in his new found religion bearing frequent testimony as to its truthfulness. Much of his time and talent were spent in positions of responsibility in the LDS church. It was his life. He loved his family and did the best he could for us, which in the end, is all that matters.

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It’s never quite what your foreign mind is thinking. Thats how life goes here in Japan. I continue to get surprized due to the very round-about way that the Japanese language and minset catagorizes things.
Take for example the Japanese school day. It’s grueling to say the least. Now the regular day is about an hour or an hour and a half shorter than its American counter part. Starts at 8:40am and ends….well, it depends on the day really. But usually around 2:40 3-ish. But then there is sports practice and then on to cram school and some kids even go to an English school. Which is where I fit in. You end up getting home about 9pm depending on the day. And all of that is an accepted norm here in Japan. I had to do a mental double take though because I realized that I didn’t have to do all that and I graduated from a major university. Makes you wonder how much so called education is really required considering the human mind only holds on to about 20% of what is pounded into it. It must also be remembered that in Japan, even though there is a long 1 month winter vacation, there is the mountain of required homework that must be done before the holliday is up. It can be pretty overwhelming.

In the middle of all this I have to mention that Anthony Sho has done an outstanding job managing such a schedule plus adding the excrutiating hours of skate practice and early morning seminary to all of it. On top of it, he managed to place third over all in his high school on the tests. And 3rd place in all Hokkaido skate competition. This was the first time though, that Sho has had definite competiontion to deal with. And in the end I think he found that he indeed can compete. After watching the first place guy I also realized Sho seemed to have more of an artistic sence about his skating than his competitors. If you think I’m patting my proud self on the back you have to remember that I know nothing about the skating world except what Sho has forcedly exposed us to. He does a lot of mental training and studies videos of famous skaters to compliment the physical training. In fact today being Saturday he spent the whole day at the ice rink.

Mami on the other hand just about got in over her head as she undertook to design and sew Sho’s costume to skate in competitions. Working hand in hand with the coach and believe it or not me, she came up with the right look to please us all and the judges too. Nevermind that she sacrificed two nights of NO sleep, not in a row mind you, to accomplish the task. I could not do that nowadays without getting physically sick. The Story doesn’t end here however. The shiny, glittery stripe that she sewed down the leggings needed to look a little more professional. So, she had to buy chained glass stone to sew as stripes. But everywhere in Kushiro that particular stone was sold out. We even went to Sapporo to two different big stores (Mom you would have gone crazy with delight in these two particular stores) but they too seemed to be sold out. Mami sat down and we were stalling for a new game plan. It was then she noticed only a few feet away a section of the beads etc. that we hadn’t looked at and the clerck hadn’t shown us. And there it was. The very glass beads Mami needed to finish the costume off professionally. Nevermind that they cost us $80 to purchase 3.2 meters of the stuff. Now, the value of that costume just doubled due to the mere sparkle-ish stripe that dons the leggings. The material was bought at a secondhand for about $30. But it’s the sequins and stone where the money really adds up. In total the whole thing was put together for about $150. Which is exstremely reasonable considering that if you buy a custom made costume off the internet, it’ll run you anywhere from $1000-$2000 just for the outfit. I’m thankful Mami has those kind of skills or Sho would’ve had to choosen a different sport a long time ago.

Ryo is in the off-season of baseball training. I’m not so sure how serious he is about anything. You see has this way of turning almost everything in some kind of humor. I love it and understand that kind of mindset but he sometimes gets to people and drives them a little crazy. He and I will make our own Hajj of sorts as we venture to the Tokyo temple to do baptisms for the dead. My only fear is that his particular session may not be serious enough to maintain the reverence needed in suc a holy place. He quite often has many of his leaders in stiches. (After returning home) Ryo did wonderfully. He was a real joy to have in the Temple. He was one of the more easier people to baptize over and over because he seemed to have a 6th sense about just how to hold himself in the water without a lot of on-the-job-training as is so often the case when doning those ordinances. I seeemd to have no trouble rattling off the prayer in Japanese almost as fast as a native as long as in was written in romanji for me.

Kyo is a very busy first grader indeed. He is taking piano lesson from his mother, Japanese calligraphy classes, English classes from me, skiing classses and swimming classes. His bright personality keeps us all smiling to say the least.

Along the line of English classes I now have a slight bit of room to brag. My English progam at the elementary school was rated the best in the nation of Japan for national schools. I have no idea what that means. But I regularly have people visiting from here and there to observe my classes. I’m actually no longer a main teacher very often. But have a lot of influence over coriculum chioces etc.

Mami is the one who deserves the crown however. She tirelessly out does us all with a terrible busy schedule juggling us all to the places we need to be. plus her Amway business, and primary president job. Managing our family is not so different than riding a wild boar.

Happy New Year to everybody in the year of the wild boar.

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Too cool! If the suit fits…. LOL

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The sound of tires crunching on the icy road outside is much more reminiscent of Iowa than southern Utah where the occasional snow storm is quickly cleared up by Mother Nature during the day with her radiant heat, at least our driveway which faces east rarely needs to be shoveled as the sun usually takes care of that task for us. That is the usual scenario but this storm has been different with its 18 inches of heavy wet snow and cloudy conditions for the next several days insuring that streets in the neighborhoods have a build up of ice on them. As children, growing up in the desert, we didn’t know what snow was. Mother remedied this by taking us for a drive up into the mountains one winter so we could see for ourselves what it felt like to be cold and hear the crunch snow makes when it is stepped on as well as how to make a snowball by packing the snow in our hands. She even made a clever little snowman which was just the right size, we told her, to take home with us even though she tried to warn us that he wouldn’t last once we left the cold of the mountain but we pleaded so hard that she let us put him into the trunk of the car where sure enough he had mostly disappeared by the time we got home. What was left we put into the freezer with the idea that he could go to school for show and tell but I don’t think he made it for that. He remained for long enough to show our friends and tell them that there was much more where ‘that’ had come from and if they were lucky maybe their mothers might take them to see it just like our mother had! We have black and white snapshots of us playing in the snow that winter day. What a happy gentle time that was for us.
Those car trips to various parts of Arizona are some of my best memories of those long ago days—could it have been because we made so many of them to visit family members and friends which meant spending a lot of time together in a confined space? Who knows, but for the times we were quite well traveled. Barbara made the comment the other day that one of the things she remembers was how we used to sleep on the floor between the front and back seat and how one time I fell off the back seat and landed on top of her and ‘broke’ her nose. She remembers complaining loudly about how I had done it on purpose but got no sympathy from mother who felt it was an accident and therefore not a punishable offense which got me off the hook but did nothing at all for her nose. (When Barbara holds a grudge she really holds on to it—I mean I don’t even remember falling on her and I am sure I would had it been intentional, but my conscience is clear. . .) What amazes me is how small a space we needed to curl up in. Granted cars today aren’t as generous with leg room as the old timers were but still those spaces were pretty small. Another favorite place to sleep, and here I seem to remember that this was Darlene’s favorite spot was on the ledge behind the back seat right in front of the rear window. I realize that this is a horrifying thought in today’s world of car seats and seat belts but at that time there weren’t nearly as many cars on the road and traffic moved at a more sedate pace than it does today. And just in case you are wondering but were to polite to ask—I buckle my seat belt faithfully every time I get into the car and have done so for a number of years now.
We used to pass the time on those drives with car games. Some of these were silly such as the one played by two of us where the first person says, for example, “I see a delicious jelly doughnut in the middle of the road and I one it”. Then the other one says, “and I two it”. Then back to the first person who says, “I three it” and so on and so on with much giggling and anticipation until the lucky person could say, “And I eight (ate) it”. Sometimes the person who got to choose what was there in the middle of the road would pick something really gross feeling their position as ‘number one’ would mean that ‘number two would end up having to say, “I eight (ate) it”. The comeback to this ploy was to quickly reply. “But I jumped over it and you eight (ate) it”. “Not fair”, number one would protest and so the squabble would begin until mother set us to rights where we would either go back to thinking of delicious food items and continue the game or retire to our separate corners and pout which reminds me, one of the skills that Barbara developed to a fine art was her ability to pout. This was of great amusement to the aunts and uncles who would tell her that she needed to be careful not to do that out in the barnyard or some chicken would spy her out thrust lip and decide to roost there. This earned them an icy glare and an even an even larger pout.
Barbara had a problem pronouncing some of her words and I can remember their delight when she would tell them about her ‘hoot’ (suit) case. Another word she regularly mispronounced was ‘happle (apple) sauce. She outgrew this tendency with time and the help of a speech therapist, whom she visited on a regular basis for a while, returning home to tell us of the fun games she got to play. Truth to tell, I was a little envious of her and the obvious relish she took in reporting what she had gotten to do. If you listen closely you can still hear the slightest of lisps or at least she tells me she has one, but if she does I long ago learned to ignore it. Another thing that Barbara did when she was feeling sassy was to stick her tongue out. None of the adults found this attractive and I can remember Grandmother Waddington telling her that she needed to keep her tongue where it belonged or someone would take a pair of scissors to it and cut it off and then wouldn’t she be sorry. It used to worry me that such a thing might actually happen and so I tried really hard to keep my tongue where it belonged but Barbara being Barbara just ignored them all.
Another game we liked to play was the ‘alphabet game’ which consisted of trying to find the letters, in order, beginning with A and going on through Z on billboards and places of business that we would pass. This only worked when we were close to or actually in a town so we had to be quick about finding all the letters we needed before we reached the open road.
We enjoyed watching for the Burma Shave signs with each small sign containing a portion of the message. For example: Burma shave was such a boon—–They passed the bride—–and kissed the groom. Or, the whale—-put Jonah—–Down the Hatch—–But coughed him up—–Because he scratched—–Burma Shave.
As we got older we liked to sing to pass the time. Songs like, This Old Man, or Found a Peanut, as well as that great classic Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall, where we substituted milk for beer. Notice that all these songs have many verses and the potential to drive ones parents crazy if repeated enough times. Sometimes I wonder just how our parents survived all the nonsense we managed to send their way, but they did, not that all do. Ann Landers once asked her readers, I believe this was in the 70’s, if, knowing what they knew after having children, if they would do it again. Seventy percent said that they wouldn’t, which is rather telling isn’t it. . . .But I believe that Mom and Dad where among the thirty percent who enjoyed the challenge.
And so gentle reader we come to the end of the year 2006. I no longer try to stay up to welcome the New Year in but if I do, it is more out of respect for the time we have shared together that leaves me sitting quietly, remembering as I wait for the passing of an old friend—the last gift I have to give as our paths part before the new year greets me with its clean slate. To you, then, I wish a happy, prosperous New Year, and I’m off to bed.

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